Inside the Mind - Sandra Francis

When I was a child, English was my favourite lesson. I especially loved creative writing. At the Careers Day at school, I told the advisor that I wanted to be a writer. Both she and my Mum said I needed to get a 'proper job.' I suppose if they were here now they might concede I do have a proper job!

The Soul Cave is my first published book. It's a non-fiction read about my spiritual journey and what started me on it, so it's part autobiography. I was late coming to spirituality, and even later publishing the book, and I found it difficult to navigate all the information out there, so I've included a sort of 'spiritual starter kit' too. Also, I receive channelled meditations and visualisations from the Angels, so some of those are in there. So you could say it's part biography, part spiritual primer and part self help book.

I don't have a typical writing day as such, I just tend to write when the ideas come. I mainly write about spiritual topics, and sometimes there's a fair bit of research to do around what I'm writing. Also, I can get messages from Spirit and the Angels, giving me whole passages for books and articles, so when that happens I need to get it down straight away. Like I said, hardly a 'typical writing day!'

Seeing and holding the book in my hands after the long, lonely journey to write it, polish it and work with my editor and publisher. By that stage, I feel like I never want anything more to do with it, but as soon as the book lands in my hands, I want to sit down and read it, even though I pretty much know it by heart!

The biggest challenge, as an indie author promoting my first book, is trying to get reviews. My publisher keeps saying I need the reviews to get the book noticed so it sells online, but although I get great feedback personally from my readers, they seem a bit shy of committing to a review. I'm grateful my book is helping people on their own spiritual journeys though.

I'm 73, so I was well into my 40s before I even had the luxury of a word processor, so I tend to do it the traditional way really. I don't use any writing aids or apps, but I'm indebted to Google and YouTube for pointing me in the right direction when I'm researching! I was delighted to find footage of the famous healer Harry Edwards, who passed to Spirit in 1976, working in the 1960s.

Keep going, believe in yourself, and avoid the 'book marketing and self-publishing experts' who want to charge you for stuff you can easily do yourself for free.

Well, my publisher is very helpful with advice, and as it's a fairly small outfit, he is proactive in promoting all his list on social media. I write articles for spiritual magazines, and though I don't get paid for that, they do publish an advert for the book along with the article. I also promote it on Facebook and LinkedIn.

I'm working on two actually! I started working on a book about the concept of gratitude, and what it means spiritually, but then Spirit gave me another idea, so I'm also working on a book about learning lessons from things that go wrong in life and using them to move forward and be happy again. There's a lot of abstract stuff around spirituality and religion, but I like to show it at work, so I use examples from my own experiences and other people to show how it works. If you're facing challenges, it's difficult to get your head around a concept, but if I can explain how it works, I can help people and give them hope. And that's why I write!